NEW YORK—A U.S.-trained Pakistani scientist was convicted Wednesday of charges that she tried to kill Americans while detained in Afghanistan in 2008, shouting with raised arm as jurors left the courtroom: “This is a verdict coming from Israel, not America.”

A jury deliberated three days in federal court in Manhattan before finding Aafia Siddiqui guilty in the third week of her attempted murder trial, which she often interrupted with rambling courtroom outbursts.

After declaring the verdict came from Israel, she turned toward spectators in the packed courtroom and said: “Your anger should be directed where it belongs. I can testify to this and I have proof.”

Siddiqui, 37, was convicted of attempted murder, though the crime was not found by the jury to be premeditated. She was also convicted of armed assault, using and carrying a firearm, and assault of U.S. officers and employees.

Before her arrest, U.S. authorities had called Siddiqui an al-Qaida sympathizer. She was never charged with terrorism, but prosecutors called her a grave threat who was carrying bomb-making instructions and a list of New York City landmarks including the Statue of Liberty when she was captured.

The defendant—a spindly neuroscience specialist who trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brandeis University—”is no shrinking violet,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher La Vigne said in closing arguments.

“She does what shewants when she wants it,” he said. “These charges are no joke. People almost died.”

Testifying in her own defense, Siddiqui claimed she had been tortured and held in a “secret prison” before her detention. Charges that she attacked U.S. personnel who wanted to interrogate her were “crazy,” she said. “It’s just ridiculous.”

In court, Siddiqui veiled her head and face with a white scarf and often sat slumped in her chair. She openly sparred with the judge and her own lawyers, insisted she could single-handedly bring peace to the Middle East and lashed out at witnesses in tirades that got her kicked out of the courtroom.

“I was never planning a bombing! You’re lying!” she yelled while an Army captain testified.

In her closing argument, defense attorney Linda Moreno accused the prosecutors of trying to play on the jury’s fears.

“They want to scare you into convicting Aafia Siddiqui,” she said. “The defense trusts that you’re much smarter than that.”

During the two-week trial, FBI agents and U.S. soldiers testified that when they went to interrogate Siddiqui at an Afghan police station, she snatched up an unattended assault rifle and shot at them while yelling, “Death to Americans.” She was wounded by return fire but recovered and was brought to the United States to face charges attempted murder, assault and gun charges.

A chief warrant officer, who testified in uniform but did not give his name, told jurors he had set down his M4 rifle after being told Siddiqui had been restrained. He testified he was shocked when she suddenly appeared from behind a curtain wielding his M4 rifle and yelling, “Allah akbar,” Arabic for “God is great.”

“It was pretty amazing she got that thing up and squared off,” he said. “She was looking at me and aiming dead at me.”

Hearing the rifle go off, the officer said he followed his military training and pulled his pistol. Siddiqui was wrestling with an interpreter when he shot her in the stomach.

“I operated within the rules of engagement to eliminate the threat,” he said.

The defense told jurors there was no ballistic, fingerprint or other physical evidence proving the weapon was “touched by Dr. Siddiqui, let alone fired by her.”

Siddiqui testified she was shot shortly after she poked her head around a curtain to see if there was a way she might slip out of the room where she was being held. She said she was desperate to escape because she feared being returned to a secret prison.

NEW YORK, Feb 03 (APP): A New York jury deliberated for several hours on Tuesday without reaching a verdict in the case of Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui, who is charged with attempted murder of FBI agents and US military personnel in Afghanistan.

The deliberations are scheduled to resume on Wednesday, at the end of which a verdict is expected. But no one could with certainty that the 12-member jury would return a verdict. Ms. Siddiqui’s case went to the jury after more than two weeks of trial in a Manhattan federal court.

She is accused of grabbing a US warrant officer’s M-4 rifle in a police station in Ghazni, Afghanistan in July 2008 and firing two shots at FBI agents and military personnel, who had gone there to interrogate her.

The prosecution alleges she emerged from behind a curtain and fire two bullets before she was shot by the chief warrants officer. Before adjourning Tuesday afternoon, the jury went over the testimonies of Ms. Siddiqui, Captain Robert Snyder of US Army, who accused her of picking an unsecured gun and firing two shots; FBI Special Agent Gordon Hurley, who was first to inspect the crime scene; and two Afghan police officers—Abdul Qadeer and Bashir.

The jurors also examined the M-4 rifle that Ms. Siddiqui is alleged to have brandished at US personnel. Last week, Siddiqui testified she was concerned about being transferred to a “secret” prison by the US forces and was trying to slip out of the room when she was shot. “I’m telling you what I know.

I walked toward the curtain. I was shot and I was shot again. I fainted,” she said. Siddiqui’s lawyer Linda Moreno said during closing arguments Monday that the “science” supported her testimony that she didn’t touch the weapon or fire it. “Where are the bullet holes? Did the Afghanis take the bullet holes? There is no physical evidence that an M-4 rifle was touched by Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, let alone fired”, Moreno said.

Some legal experts believe that by testifying before the court against the advice of her lawyers and family, Ms. Siddiqui may have complicated her case. This was clear from the way the prosecution on Monday picked holes in her testimony, accusing her of lying planning to destroy New York City landmarks. Ms. Siddiqui vanished in Karachi with her three children on March 30, 2003.

US officials allege that she was seized on July 17, 2008 by Afghan security forces in Ghazni province and claim that documents, including formulas for explosives and chemical weapons, were found in her handbag. She has been brought to the United States to face charges of attempted murder and assault.

Siddiqui faces 20 years in prison on the attempted murder charges and life in prison on the firearms charge. However, human rights organizations have cast doubt on the accuracy of the US account of the event.

As closing remarks came to an end and jury deliberations began in the trial of female Pakistani. Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, who faces 7 count assault and attempted murder charges in a New York Court room, for an alleged shooting incident in Ghazni Afghanistan, many spectators are wondering if it is possible for her to have a fair trial in post 9-11 America.

Although she is not charged with terrorism, the Prosecution was able to make that claim the underpinning of its entire case, due in large part to Judge Richard Berman’s decision to allow into evidence documents found in Dr. Siddiqui’s possession which include handwritten notes about “how to make a dirty bomb” and plans to cause “mass casualties” in the United States. The defense Attorney, Charles Swift said it was a legally “flawed” decision and will be the basis on an appeal if Dr. Siddiqui is not acquitted.

In their closing remarks the prosecution was able to spin the jury’s decision from a verdict on the guilt or innocence of Dr. Siddiqui, to the guilt or innocence of the 9 government eyewitnesses who say they heard or saw an M4 rifle shot on July 18, 2008 by Dr. Siddiqui. ‘For you to find Aafia Siddiqui not-guilty. That means you believe that the 9 Government witnesses who testified under oath stared you in the face and lied, men and women of the armed forces.’

The Prosecution characterized Siddiqui as a highly intelligent yet shrewd and cunning manipulator who carefully “planned her defense”. He described how she “ducked” and “dodged” questions referring to her answers about the year she was born and her son who was found with her. During her testimony Dr. Siddiqui was asked if she was born in 1972. Her response was “If you say so” , then when on to explain how can anyone recall when they were born. Later, she was asked by Jenna Dabbs if the boy she was with was her son. She again couldn’t answer directly claiming that she only saw pictures of him so she didn’t know for sure. Though many legal observers found her answers quite logical, it would be difficult for the jury to understand this without being informed of her claims of being in held in a secret prison for 5 years.

The prosecution then addressed the inconsistencies in the eyewitness testimonies as analogous to a car accident, in which different people would have different accounts of what happened prior to the accident as their “focus” would be on different things, but during the accident everyone’s focus would then “shift” to the sight of action and then perspectives would converge.

Later during the rebuttal phase of the closing, the prosecution argued that the inconsistencies were proof that the accounts were truthful. “They didn’t get together” and make sure their stories matched. “There was no grand conspiracy to convict this woman.” If they wanted to do that “why didn’t they simply plant some evidence” at the crime scene.

They were responding to the closing remarks made by the defense in which Linda Moreno argued that the ‘bond” between soldiers on the battlefield who must “protect each other”, influenced the testimonies of the government witnesses. She pointed out that their testimonies not only conflicted with each other’s but with their own earlier signed statements.

Moreno tried to get the jury to focus on the science and the forensic evidence. “there’s only one witness who’s impartial” and who “doesn’t have a dog in this fight”, and that is the room she said, the 26 X 12 ft room, 300 square feet with 10-120 people. She reminded the of the complete lack of physical evidence, no bullets, casings, bullet holes, gun shot residue. No one else was hurt except Aafia Siddiqui in this small crowded room where the M4 rifle allegedly went off. She responded to the government claim that the Afghans took the evidence, by pointing out that they (the Afghans) were the ones who alerted the Americans to her in the first place.

The Prosecution’s closing remarks had more references to the “documents” describing terrorist acts against Americans, than throughout the entire trial. Moreno responded to this by saying, “they’re trying to scare you. But that “Fear has no place in this trial. Fear has no place in America”